"Nothing's wrong." He knelt down in front of her and placed his big hands around her hips. He leaned in to kiss her with decisiveness, letting his lips and the tip of his tongue trail along her lush mouth, so hot from the recent friction.

He whispered into her ear, "I'm not going to last if you keep doing that. It's too wonderful. I promise I'll make it up to you, though."

She sighed with immense pleasure and held his face in front of her, touching him softly around his eyes and at his temples. "Oh, Quinn," she breathed. "Did you enjoy playing for me today?"

"What?"

"Did you enjoy playing the pipes for me today?"

"Of course I did," he said, smiling sweetly. "I loved playing for you, seeing you enjoy yourself."

"Exactly." Audie kissed him tenderly, overwhelmed by a hot rush of feeling for him that she couldn't stop and didn't want to identify. "So just let me do the entertaining for a while, all right? Now stand up."

"I meant what I said. I love you, Audie."

Love! The word burned in her throat, behind her eyes, in her brain!

Quinn stayed on his knees and gazed at her long and deep. "I love being with you. You make me laugh-more than any woman I've ever known. You're good for my soul."

She shook her head almost imperceptibly and tried to smile, though her heart was splitting apart with fear and dread and panic.

"Quinn, I-"

"Don't." He stopped her abruptly, then softened his voice. "Maybe someday you'll tell me what I want to hear. But until then, don't say anything."

Audie blinked at him, not quite sure what she'd ever done in her whole entire life to deserve a man like Stacey Quinn, if only for a while.

"I told you I suck at love."

A very depraved smile spread across Quinn's face, and he ran a fingertip over her wet lips. "Then, lassie, for the time being let's just stick to the things you do extremely well."

Hestood up and stepped away from the bed, smiling as he popped open the waistband of the kilt. It fell to the floor in a heap around his ankles.

"Aren't you going to fold it and put it on the chair?" Audie asked.

"I'll get it in the morning."

It surprised her that she could laugh at a time like this, but she did. Only Quinn could make her laugh while her blood boiled and her heart broke apart.

She gazed at him-his body hard with desire, his eyes so intense they burned through her. She'd always remember him like this.

"Then get your naked butt back over here, Detective. I'm not done entertaining you."

The news wasn't entirely unexpected, but Marjorie was still stunned. The words themselves felt heavy. They settled on her with a loud thud.

"The aneurysm is thirty percent larger than two months ago," the doctor had said. "The medication hasn't worked as we hoped and now surgery isn't even an option. I'm very sorry."

She'd sat motionless.

"It could be any time-days, weeks. But very soon. You'll need to get your affairs in order."

He had no idea.

Marjorie looked around her now and sighed. She briefly acknowledged the brown and wilted plants at the windows, the disorder, disarray, and dust of these once elegant rooms. She could resist the idea of tidying up tonight, as she'd resisted it for over a year now, though the sight of all this disrespect made her sick, sick, sick!

Audie had ruined this apartment-Helen's place, her place-the symbol of everything they'd worked for. And the anger rose in her so hard and so fast that it made her blind the way it sometimes did, like the night she became the person she now was.

Marjorie felt a headache coming.

There was no time to waste. Everything she did from this moment on must be streamlined, purposeful-and perfect.

She took one last look over her calm black lake and her sparkling city, then walked slowly to the guest room. She lay down upon the bed to wait out the pain now throbbing through her skull.

The bedclothes were neat, but she could smell that detective on the pillowcases. He had defiled her room, her bed, and such awful visions of him and Autumn came to her that she felt ill again! Absolutely sickened! That girl had no right to be happy-no right!

Oh, Helen! How had it come to this?

Marjorie turned her cheek into the soft cotton of the pillow and allowed herself to cry. It was impossible to forget the image-the eyes that burned with a smoky dark fire, the way her hair fell in rich dark waves around her face, that lovely face! And those lips… those lips that were at once the essence of joy and the vehicle for betrayal.

For forty-four years, those lips made the world disappear. Then they said things that made it all look so sordid, so wrong, such a mistake.

Of course Helen deserved to die. Just as Autumn did. In fact, sometimes she had difficulty reminding herself that they weren't one and the same-Autumn looked so much like her mother did so long ago.

Marjorie's head was spinning.

They'd been as one since freshman year. All they'd survived! The delicate juggling act that allowed them to explore their passion for each other while keeping Helen academically sound and socially desirable. Then the sham of a marriage to Robert Adams! It was necessary, of course-Robert's presence gave their arrangement legitimacy.

And all they'd accomplished-the combination of Helen's charm and her own brilliance and determination made them unstoppable! How dare Helen decide-after a lifetime together-that she wanted to be with someone else! And a man, no less! Banner CEO Malcolm Milton!

Marjorie stared up at the ceiling in the guest room and laughed out loud at her own stupidity. Being Helen's business partner had made her wealthier than she'd ever imagined. And from the beginning, Helen had assured her the column would be hers if anything happened to her. It was only fair, Helen always said.

So when the will specified leaving the column to Autumn first, then Drew, Marjorie was devastated. There she was, dying, finally demanding the recognition she'd always deserved-but all she got was more money. But she didn't want more money. She wanted glory! She wanted to be Homey Helen!

Marjorie heard the sound of her own desperate laughter echo through the guest room. How many times had she gone over this in her mind since then? The absurdity of leaving something so precious to those two idiots!

Autumn? For God's sake. Her life calling seemed to be teaching delinquents to kick a little ball into a big net. And Andrew? Dear God! He was a gutless, indolent twit who was slowly killing himself with alcohol.

Helen's progeny. The offspring of a cold-hearted, selfish bitch and a cuckold.

You'll need to get your affairs in order.

She brought a hand to her head. She wrenched her eyes against the throbbing.

Marjorie didn't like to think about what had happened fifteen months ago, but sometimes the images were so raw that they crashed through her brain like a freight train-unstoppable, loud, and painful. Like now.

She'd suggested they meet after work for a drink. No, things had not been good between them for a while, but Marjorie now had an explanation for the mood swings and her raging headaches and her screaming fits. Helen would understand. Helen would take her home to the Lakeside Pointe condo and hold her, comfort her, remind her of all they'd shared.

She knew that as long as Helen told her she loved her, she could face whatever came next.

An enlarged artery was pushing against her brain stem, she told Helen, and surgery might kill her.

Didn't Helen seehow much she needed her right then? Didn't Helen know that she held her heart in her hands?

Helen had looked her in the eye, patted her hand, and said how sorry she was. Then she proceeded to tell her that their relationship was over because she was in love with Malcolm Milton.